Gravatational
by Mystic25
Summary: Takes place after 4x23 "Graduation." When Damon discovers what became of his brother, from his non brother. Spoilers from Season 4 Finale.
1. Chapter 1

"Gravitational"

Mystic25

Summary: Takes place after 4x23 "Graduation." When Damon discovers what became of his brother, from his non brother. Spoilers from Season 4 Finale.

Rating: T for language, and violent imagery.

A/N: I am not a Delena fan, but to fit in with the storyline from the season finale, I will honor it. Because this focus will not be on a romance; it will be on the brothers.

* * *

**xxxxXxxx**

"_You're lying Delores, and one mustn't tell lies."_

~"Harry Potter" "Deathly Hallows: Part One"

**xxxxXxxx**

* * *

It was the littlest of things that gave it away.

Stefan had returned from the basement; a blood bag clutched casually in his palm. When he emerged onto the first floor landing he spotted Damon who was standing beside the fireplace and asked: "You want one of these?"

Something clicked in Damon's head, like the cog of a clockwork piece turning into a groove. Up until then Stefan's sudden shift from his proclamation that he was going to 'get a life of his own', his almost indifference to Damon and Elena being together – Damon had managed to explain away all of it.

Stefan was always a drama queen; but an introverted drama queen. He brooded silently with the best of them. So a sudden redirection of his new life plan wasn't abnormal; because he was quiet about it.

And quiet equaled broody, which equaled Damon's brother to a fault.

So Damon had been inclined to let Stefan have his petulance. His moments of malcontent when Elena would "go to bed" at the same time Damon did. And even after Damon had emerged from his bedroom with Elena behind him, and Stefan had spotted her, and merely asked if she wanted coffee – Damon just told himself that Stefan was trying to be a pain in the ass marty, and left it alone.

But today, three weeks later, on a basic low level evening – Stefan standing on the stairs, holding the bag out to Damon like it was nothing. It all hit the air like an accelerant to an open flame.

Because today, Damon could not explain it away. The relationship they had went back 165 years. And as much as Damon would deny it to anyone, including himself, he _knew_ his brother. Stefan was a prudish, martyr of routine.

And one of those routines included a constant deep rooted guilty look every time had to consume human blood.

There was none of the casual indifference he saw his brother wearing on his face now.

"I already ate," Damon threw out. He watched Stefan shrug and break the seal on the blood bag, and poured its contents with a 'glug' into a glass.

Stefan picked up the tumbler and downed half the blood inside.

"How come you're not hunting for Bambi's mom and sisters again?" Damon asked. He drank from his own glass which contained an amber colored bourbon. Breakfast of athletes and bad ass vampires.

"I think a pack of rabid wolves got a hold of the deer," Stefan took another hit of blood. "I found three of them dead, no fresh wounds. Didn't want to take the risk."

"One pack of wolves can't infect all the deer of Mystic Falls Stefan," Damon pointed out. "And we're already dead; it's not like rabies is going to double kill you."

"No, but it wouldn't be my idea of a fun time, Damon, so how about you drop it?" Stefan returned.

Damon raised the hand up that he held the glass in, as if in surrender. "No need to get extra broody Brother. You might mess up your hero coif." He watched Stefan shrug into an almost Stefan smile.

Almost.

"Hunting's overrated anyway." Damon took another swallow of his liquor.

Stefan's smile was still there, still almost there. "When was the last time you actually went hunting Damon?"

"Unless you count _people_, It was that Stag Hunting expedition we took with Uncle Josiah out in the woods at Lancaster." Damon smirked in almost disbelief at the whole memory. "The highlight of that trip was when he almost shot a council member, remember? He was so drunk on his homemade distilled crap he couldn't shoot the broadside of a redwood."

Stefan's smile blew into a laugh. "How could I forget? The whole thing was an Act in Screwed Up Family Values-"

"Hey, what was the name of that blood hound of his?" Damon interrupted. "The dog had a lazy eye and no sense of smell, he was practically useless as anything but bait."

"It was a long time ago Damon," Stefan argued. "Another time."

Damon stared at him. "Yeah you're right." The air bore a moment of pause. "Or it just never happened." Damon's voice shifted from amusement to something else. He took a step towards the other man. "Because there was no hunting dog, or an Uncle Josiah-" Damon was now right by him. "These are things that you would remember Stefan- except you're not really Stefan are you, Silas?"

'Stefan' licked his lips and lowered his head down in an amused dry laugh before he met Damon's gaze again. "I would say that I'm impressed Damon, but it took you _three weeks _ to figure out my Trojan Horse routine-"

"Where's my brother?" Damon's voice had bottomed into something feral.

"A little _late_ to be caring about that side of things isn't it?" Silas said. Though you have been busy fucking Stefan's former conquest-"

The room erupted into a fit of noise. The tumbler of blood Silas held shattered and stained the walls. Damon rushed onto Silas in a blur of velocity and slammed him up against the wood of the walls, splintering them.

"_Damon, what the hell are you doing?"_ Elena had been out with Caroline helping her friend buy things for her college dorm room. She now stood inside the foyer, the door opened to the night. Her keys dropped inside one of the shopping bags at her feet.

She rushed inside. "_Damon!"_ she tried to pry him off, but was thrown aside by Damon's free hand.

"_Damon!-"_

"It's not Stefan!" Damon's returning shout erupted over his shoulder; his grip hard on his non brother.

Elena's face portrayed total confusion, for only about three seconds. Then realization hit into her like a disintegrating glacier. "_Oh my God."_

Silas laughed in Stefan's voice. "It's nice that I'm held in such high regards by one as ravishing as you Elena."

"What did you do to Stefan?" Elena demanded coming into the living room, her hair blew around her by her created wind.

Damon grabbed Silas by the throat. "Answer her question."

"He's dead," Silas answered like it was an amusing fact. "Or should I say _dying._ Desiccation can take decades to waste away a vampire-" Silas grabbed Damon's from his neck and broke it backwards forcing Damon to let go with a strangled cry.

"Tell us where Stefan is!" Elena shouted, her voice fierce.

" You're not as smart as Stefan makes you out to be girl," Silas taunted. "My telling you would be too easy. And what's happening now," there was a hint of a smile as Silas watched Elena's reaction to his words, then Damon's. Like they were an amusing circus pantomime act. "It's not an easy way to go. One might call it _torturous-_"

Damon was back on Silas in a rush. His broken wrist pinned a jagged wooden chair leg to Silas chest. "Where. Is. My brother?" Damon's voice was base level primal.

Silas' amused look entrenched itself deeper onto his face. "You honestly think something like that can kill something like me?"

"This?" Damon glanced briefly at the stake in his hand. "No. But me? – I'd say that was your real problem."

Silas head tilted back into a laugh. "Your bravado in front of your maiden is admirable Damon," he drew closer so that he was nearly nose to nose with Damon. "My question remains the same."

"You're obviously an only child," Damon plowed the wood into Silas chest. The wooden leg squelched through his gut with a spray of blood.

Silas was an immortal being. So the stake did not affect him like a vampire. But, the pain of having a 12 inch piece of jagged wood rammed into his gut doubled him over.

"First you're going to tell us where Stefan is," Damon torqued the wood inside Silas chest and Silas gave a grunted, strangled cry. "Then you're going to stop the Halloween costume act and show us your real face so I know what I'm killing."

Silas growled angrily. "This is my real face." he ripped the wood from his body and aimed it at Damon's heart.

The maneuver was intercepted by Elena, but Silas sent both her and the stake sprawling to the floor, and crashing into a table. The impact shattered the table like wooden hail onto her.

Silas marched over to Elena, but he didn't touch her, and instead picked up the stake, "Before either of you enact any revenge fantasies, I will enlighten you on a few facts," He stared at the pointed tip of the wood, his eyes fixed on Damon. "Baby brother has one of these stuck inside him. Each time he struggles for breath from where confined him; it drives it that much closer to his heart. It's my personal Schrodinger's Cat experiment. See what he succumbs to first. So I suggest you both prioritize." Silas' gaze moved from Damon to Elena who had climbed back onto her feet. "What's more important, me? Or the other me?"

Neither one of them saw Silas leave, not even with the speed of their senses. But when they looked again to where he had stood, Silas was gone.

**xxxxXxxx**

* * *

"_What did you find?"_

"Nothing," Caroline was down on her knees by the side of the ledge beside the quarry, her fingers brushing through the damp sand. "It was _three_ weeks ago and it rained so much that if there was anything here it's gone now-" the sand was smooth in the beam of her flashlight.

"_You know unless you have something tangible and merit worthy to say regarding the situation Caroline I suggest you not talk-"_

"I want to find Stefan too Damon!" Caroline snapped into phone. "So you and Elena work faster to get your asses here and stop being condescending!-"

A hand on her shoulder made her jump. Caroline expected it to be Damon about to deliver a one liner about how he _was_ fast. But instead it was Matt. His face was illuminated by the light of his tow truck.

"I searched a mile down in both directions," Matt said "I didn't see anything."

A sense of dread suddenly came over Caroline. "Then it has to be here- Stefan was going to throw Silas' body into the quarry," Caroline stared over the edge of the ravine, at the churning and raging of the water below.

The same look that came over Caroline came over Matt. In the lights of his headlights White capped waves sprayed up the base of the cement wall. "Care-"

The engine of a black SUV cut off from behind Matt's tow truck. Elena sprang from the passenger seat.

"He's here!" Caroline's shout made Elena run to lip of rock she was standing on. "No tracks, but it's the only place wide enough to park the SUV off the road and right up to the water."

"That doesn't mean anything," Damon came up beside Elena, his dark eyes downcast to the water. The churning and raging roaring in his ears. "The current down there's strong enough to have moved the safe anywhere along the bottom."

"So what are we doing?" Matt asked.

"I'll search the bottom, see if I can find it," Damon said, turning to Matt. "Get your winch ready to haul when I come back up."

"I'm coming with you!" Elena insisted.

"No you're not."

"Damon, you can't haul a safe to the surface by yourself!" Elena yelled back. " I'm helping-"

"We're not arguing about this!" Damon snapped back glancing again at Matt. "Donovan get your truck ready and if she tries to follow me hoist her up by her belt loop and fling her ass home." Damon took one glance at the water before he took half a leap and shot downward like an arrow.

"_Damon!"_

Elena's voice trailed all the way down as Damon broke the surface of the water.

The water was pitch black and warm and butted Damon from all sides like a mosh pit at a rock concert. He propelled himself downward, and found that the water grew somewhat lighter and a minute later he found out the source. Flood lights at the base of the quarry, beaming their light upwards. The lights were huge, about 2 feet wide and rectangular.

Damon could see a row of three of them, clumps of algae had grown around one of the floodlights, but its light still managed to permeate through it. But it was not true of the last light, which glowed around the edges in an inverted 90 degree angle, blocked by something that wasn't algae.

Damon swam to that blackness, his hands grasping the rusted edges of the dark safe. Three loops of steel chains were wrung around it both horizontally and vertically, like a birthday present. He pulled, but the pressure of the waves and the corroded metal kept the chains firm.

So Damon shifted focus. He backed up and, using one of the chains for leverage, pulled at the safe. It didn't move at his first attempt, or his second. He pulled with a fierce hard last jerk and the safe broke free from the stone ground.

Steel wasn't buoyant, so it did not stay risen for long Damon used all of his strength and pulled it upwards with him. The muscles in his body felt like liquefied fire, and a point of jagged rusted metal scrapped hard into his chest, slicing through the leather of his black jacket.

But he kept tugging, yanking, pulling. His breath finally broke into air. "_Throw it down!" _he called up to Matt.

Damon tried to keep hold of the safe and stay treading water, but even with all his Vampire strength the metal was beginning to slide down his hands. He gripped tighter, using both hands, grunting audibly from the effort.

"Damon!" Elena didn't wait for his okay this time and she jumped off the ledge, feet first and plunged into the water, landing only a few feet away from him. She swam the distance to the safe and reached under the water, finding purchase on one of the chains, and hauling up with Damon.

The combined force of both their strengths managed to raise the safe higher up.

"_Matt, hurry!"_ Elena grunted, throwing her shoulder into the side of the safe to keep it aloft.

The heavy metal hook of Matt's towing winch swung down along with his search light. The metal hook descended lower until it was a finger tip length away from Elena's hand. She strained out and managed to grab the end of it locking it to the top most section of chains, calling: _"Go!"_ to Matt once it was secure.

"Get up," Damon grabbed Elena's foot and hauled her up on top of the box.

Elena grabbed the chains and pulled herself up on the safe. She turned to see Damon grabbing to the side section of chain and she grasped his wrist to keep him there.

The winch began to raise, but there was a horrible groaning sound from the motor, the weight capacity of carrying a safe and three Vampires was too much for it.

Caroline heard the motor sparking out. She jumped up on the back of the truck and started pulling at the chains with her hands. Matt started helping her. His strength was only human, and blood began spilling down his hands from the metal cutting into it, and his shoulders started popping and screaming, but he kept pulling with Caroline.

The safe cleared the halfway point, then a peaking of it sprang up over the ledge. Caroline jumped down and grabbed at one of the loops of metal and pulled with a scream as Elena jumped off and helped her.

Damon found a crack in the quarry face to anchor his feet and pushed from the back end of the safe.

The black metal box cleared the ledge in a tumble and landed with the door face up.

There was a heavy padlock interlocking all the metal chains together. Elena tore it off, and a harsh ripping sound came from her right as Damon severed the links of the chains like twine.

The handle of the safe had been torn off leaving nothing to grasp to open the door.

"Here!" Matt came around from his truck with a crowbar. He placed it under the seam of the door across from the hinges, bracing back and pried upwards. Elena helped him and the crow bar snapped in half, as the safe door burst open.

Elena dropped the broken piece of crow bar as a rush of stagnant smelling water poured out onto the concrete in a wave.

"_Oh god-"_

As the water had began to recede from inside the safe it revealed a humanoid shape, gray as the granite below, almost fused to the back of the safe.

"Stefan!-" Elena reached inside, grabbing onto what she could only imagine was Stefan's arm. But, it was so gray, so stone like that it didn't resemble an arm at all. She tugged, hard, but she could not manage to move him.

Damon reached up and ripped the top of the safe off throwing the metal sheet to the ground. Elena and Caroline followed his example and tore off the sides and the door.

Stefan's body fell to the ground, as unyielding as concrete. His skin even more gray in the headlights of Matt's truck, a water damaged wooden stake sunk deep into his chest.

"_Oh my god-"_

"Get the blood from the car!" Damon cut off Caroline's shocked outburst. He reached down and pulled the stake from Stefan's chest. His brother's body jerked up from the force of his tugging, but didn't move after that.

There was a rush of wind and Caroline was kneeling by Stefan's head clutching a donor blood bag. She bit through the plastic through her fangs and smeared it across his lips.

"Come on Stefan!" Elena pleaded, rubbing a finger over his mouth to try and stimulate it into opening "Come on!- you have to drink this!"

Every other part of Stefan's body was like stone. Webbed over like cracked granite, contracted like a statue welded upon itself. But his lips were so translucent they almost glowed.

"Why isn't it working?" Matt asked, to no one, and to all of them. He stared at Stefan. Stefan hadn't been alive in a long time. But , lying there like that, he didn't look-"It's not supposed to take this long-"

"Say another word Donovan and I'll rip the carotid out of your throat!" Damon snapped, his voice sharper than his fangs.

"Drink the blood Stefan!" Caroline shouted, prying open Stefan's mouth. It came apart with a hideous jerking motion like rigor mortis had set in on a body. Caroline took the blood bag and squeezed a puddle of blood into Stefan's mouth then forced his jaw back closed. "Please Stefan, please drink it! _Please!_" Caroline fell back on her knees, her body convulsing on sobs she was trying to force down.

Damon watched the image of Caroline shouting, forcing more blood down Stefan's mouth Elena shaking his shoulders, Matt staring in shock at Damon's brother, who wasn't moving, despite almost an entire bag full of blood going into his mouth. He watched all this with the quiet kind of detachment, before the accelerant that was inside him found open flame.

Damon lunged forward and shoved a hand into the bleeding hole inside Stefan's chest. He squeezed the torn part, hard. "_Swallow the damn blood, brother!"_

Damon's scream echoed off the granite and he thrust his hand in deeper.

Stefan's body jerked like he'd been electrocuted and a spray of blood flew out of his mouth and hit Caroline and Elena's faces.

Damon removed his hand pulling back like he'd been a conduit for such an electrocution. His skin was coated like a glove in his brother's blood.

Stefan's body convulsed on a gasp, then a choke as he threw up a mass amount of foul smelling water. Caroline grabbed his shoulders to keep him from falling backwards and choking.

Stefan pried his eyes open, then blinked them wide with another huge gasp. The shapes around him were all disorienting and blurred, and too bright, but one started to become sharper.

"—_Damon-"_ Stefan's voice confused and grated from the vomiting and the lack of use. He dry gagged again.

Damon breathed out once. He grabbed Stefan's arm by the crux of his elbow, his brother's blood touching his brother, and hauled him to his feet.

"Get him in the car," A look, three seconds and gone, but unmistakably _there_, passing between them before Damon released Stefan's arm.

Caroline grabbed Stefan's now free arm and Matt took up the other side draping his arm across his neck. They lead him away from the ravine and towards the car.

Damon didn't touch his brother again, but he was no more than two steps behind Caroline and Matt, eyes scanning the night for Silas.


	2. Chapter 2

**xxxxXxxxx**

"_The Salvatore's' may fight like dogs, but in the end they would die for each other."_

~"Rebecca Mikalson" "The Vampire Diaries"

**xxxxXxxxx**

* * *

Caroline had spent a lot of time in the Salvatore house lately. But she had rarely spent time in either Salvatore brother's bedroom, with the one exception of when Damon had been compelling her into being his Barbie doll. She still hadn't fully forgiven him for that; but she had learned to move past it. But she had then made it a rule not to be in either of these rooms again, out of principal.

Tonight she was breaking her own rule as she sat cross legged in the middle of Stefan's vast bed holding out a glass almost completely full of blood. "All of it gone mister. Matt's going to find some animal supplements to it so you don't OD."

Stefan took the glass from her, the back of his ring hitting the faceted crystal. He took a slow drink. He was sitting against the headboard of his bed. One leg crossed over the other, not quite lying down, but not quite sitting up either. He was still in the same clothes with the only acceptation being the leather jacket he shed. His clothes stunk from the accumulation of three weeks of sweat, blood and stagnant water.

"Caroline-"

"Don't-!" Caroline said, raising a hand up to silence him. "Don't you dare say I'm fine Stefan Salvatore, You spent _three weeks_ at the bottom of the quarry, staked and desiccating because of Silas! Okay? You're _not._ fine!" Her eyes betrayed her concern.

Elena's shoes echoed off the hardwood tile as she came out of Stefan's on suit bathroom holding a damp rag that smelled pungent of soap. "Here," she rounded to the side of the bed that Stefan was on. "You're probably not up for a shower right now, but this should work until you are-"

"Thanks," Stefan took the rag from her, but only set it aside on the nightstand.

"How are you feeling?" Elena asked in genuine concern.

"I'm okay," Stefan responded.

"Stefan you almost _died,"_ Elena argued. "You can admit you're not okay-"

"Hey," Matt came into the room before Stefan could counter. He was holding a 1965 .45 Remington Rifle in two heavily bandaged hands. "This things got only 2 rounds, and I've never shot anything besides an automatic, what kind of shells does it take?"

"I thought Damon was supposed to be looking for extra rounds," Caroline argued.

"He is, but I can't find him anywhere. It's not officially hunting season until next week. If someone one catches me out in the woods shooting and draining a stag of all its blood they're going to get suspicious."

"My dad went hunting with you Matt," Elena argued. "You're a good shot, you shouldn't need more than two rounds."

"_Guys!"_

Stefan's voice made all the others in the room turn to face him.

"I'm not dead. " Stefan pulled forward, staring at all of them." I'm right here. I appreciate what you're all trying to do. But none of its necessary."

"How's the patient?" Damon came into the room. He clothes and hair were still damp from diving into the quarry. "Broody and non complaint?"

"Matt is going out there by _himself_ to kill a deer, Damon." Stefan argued turning his eyes to his brother. "Not with Silas on the loose."

"You heard Elena, Donovan's a good shot." Damon argued back. "You were desiccated and staked Stefan. Straight Human blood makes you Charles Manson; this is the only alternative to rehab you. Liz is going out to watch his back- she can explain away a drunk high school grad trying bag his first 5 point buck better than her tryst with the local vampires."

"I don't need to be rehabbed, Damon-" Stefan swung his legs over the bed, but when he attempted to stand he stumbled, knocking into the night stand by his bed, sending the lamp wobbling. He found purchase on one of the bed posts, shrugging off both Elena's and Caroline hands.

Damon observed the whole thing with a silent look. "Until you can say that without falling over like a drunk college pledge brother, you don't get a say in the matter." He tossed a red box of shell casings to Matt. "Get going, it'll to be light soon."

Matt caught the box one handed and left out the door.

Damon turned to Elena and Caroline in turn. "If you two don't mind, I need to have a private chat with my recently impersonated, dead undead little brother."

Both Elena and Caroline recognized the dismissal, and neither one of them said anything as they left.

Stefan was still standing. He leant more on the bed than he was willing to admit, but kept himself at his full 5'11" height. "What are you doing? You can't send Matt out alone in the woods at night. Silas can be _anyone._ How can Matt protect himself from what he can't even _see?_"

"Silas curried a favoritism to turn into _you, _Stefan," Damon returned. "And he was a bit narcissistic about it being his _true fce_, so I say we're safe for a while on the costume changes." Damon's look turned into a glare. "You know I just saved your life brother, you might want to fall off your high horse and say thank you." His eyes roamed lower. "Or stop bracing yourself against the furniture if you're trying to convince me you're up to full Vampire status."

Stefan leant up from the bed, transferring his weight fully to his feet."Damon-" he slanted forward, this time he succeeded in knocking the lamp over into a crash into the floor.

Damon and Stefan did an awkward sort of dance; Damon was half ready to give into the urge to throw his brother back onto the bed on his ass so he would stop standing like he was drunk. And Stefan tried to find a way to right himself without making it seem like Damon's remark had been a valid one.

The end result of such a dance was that Stefan braced an arm against the wall and found his bearings and Damon produced a long eye roll at the whole scene, all the while keeping an look of indifference on his face.

"If you wanted to get Matt out of earshot, you ask him to leave the room, you don't send him on a suicidal death mission-"

"The Justice League of Female Vampires wasn't about to let any of our conversations be private Stefan; not after you red flagged their hovering radar." Damon threw back. "I used Matt shooting things in the dark to divert their focus . I need to know what Silas told you."

"Wow it didn't take long for that concern of yours to melt, Damon." Stefan said.

"We'll hug it out when we're done brother, tell me what Silas told you." Damon returned. "Other than that you and Katherine now share more than just a tawdry string of affairs."

"He taunted me, and then he threw me into a safe after staking me in the chest; there wasn't time to pen a soliloquy in between there." Stefan went for the honest, brutal answer. The lack of food and the desiccation, not to mention the stake through his chest made things a bit of a limbo'd blur. He felt like he had after a Ripper binge, waking up to a pile of bodies and a house he didn't recall. But he still remembers the tearing feelings of what _got_ him there in the first place.

"_How much water did you ingest_?" Damon threw back, his voice a bit disgusted. Stefan graced him with a look. The same one he had worn as a kid when he came home with their new hunting dog. Still a puppy, with a broken leg, and with no explanation other than a mass amount of 4-year-old crying as to how it happened. "Fine. But you're telling me later, brother. Switching gears then, we need a way to distinguish you from fake you. Silas is an ancient _dick_, which means he's still going to play his best card, we need to be one step ahead of him."

"If he finds out you all broke me out of that safe, he'll kill you." Stefan tells Damon like his brother should know such things. "Being one step ahead of him is sticking to my original plan-" He watched Damon give him a '_blow off'_ look. It was one that was deeper than Caroline, Matt, or even Elena would ever see Damon use on him; because they would never be around to witness it. "I need to leave town-"

"You can't even leave this _room_ without looking like a deflated marionette on crack, and you want to try going past the 100 square foot mark?" Damon retorted. "Brilliant plan Stef."

"I'm putting everyone in danger by staying Damon and you know it," Stefan returned. "So whatever this-" he waved his hand in between him and Damon "-concern you're trying to show for me. I appreciate it, but we need to think practically."

"Part of thinking practically is knowing when to _shut up_, Stefan!" Damon's voice rose to a yell. "Don't think, for one second, that just because I want to drive that stake back up your chest I'm indifferent to how it got there." Damon was now only a few steps away from his brother, having moved there almost unconsciously. "So you want to be all moral, and ride of in a self depreciating sunset? _Fine._ But you're not doing it tonight."

Damon moved away from Stefan with the same fluidity he would have used had he pinned his brother against the wall. His room was larger than Stefan's, but Stefan's was still large enough to making walking to the door not accomplished in a handful of steps.

In the middle of leaving the room Stefan's voice turned Damon back around.

"Damon, one of the things Silas told me, it was about Bonny – She's dead."

The look on Damon's face went from heated anger at his brother to something that bordered on shock had Damon actually allowed himself to succumb to such an emotion.

"It's how he was able to break out of the spell she put on him."

Stefan listened to the footfalls of his older brother wing off the hardwood floors as he approached him again. Damon had a morbid streak that he exercised on a daily basis, that ripped blood from the necks of everyone he chose to exercise it _on._ But he also had an affinity to proximity; getting close enough to someone that their breath exhaled on him.

Stefan wasn't excluded on this; he had been the first one Damon had ever done on. As a child, breaking in amongst the governess to peer inside the English pram at the baby, going nose to nose with the tiny thing, feeling the puffs breath blow into his eyes. To Damon it gave a sense of solidity, that the thing in the room had a beating heart, and breath just like him. That it wasn't just some sort of illusion.

"I take it you want me to tell Elena," Damon said by way of trying to explain away the odd sense of mourning he had for Bonny Bennett. The witch that had tried, on more than one occasion to kill him, along with half of her linage. But that he couldn't exclude in his short list of friends.

"No, Damon," Stefan let go of the wall, and it was like a chair trying to now stand on three legs.

Damon had enough of the crap of his brother. He grabbed Stefan's arm and shoved his brother back onto the bed.

Stefan looked at him with angry indignation for a moment, but channeled it into his words and remained sitting. "If you tell Elena that her best friend was killed by Silas now, it will send her back over the edge, and she may not come back this time."

"Just because lying is my normal department Stefan doesn't mean I'm going to pretend Bonny's off at Vassar when she's off haunting the Other Side." Damon insisted.

"You're supposed to love Elena, right?" Stefan, stared up at Damon. His height on the bed was akin to when he had just turned 13 and Damon was a good head taller than him. "You have to protect her from things like this. You need to do this for her-"

"This isn't _Guiding Light_," Damon retorted. "I don't have a 'need to do' quota for my girlfriend that must be met so the ratings stay good."

"Fine, than do it for me," Stefan insisted. At his words he watched Damon give him the a look like he'd drunk lemon milk instead of blood. "You want me to stay in Mystic Falls, than this is what will get me to stay."

Damon stared at his brother like he wanted to punch him, perhaps stake him. But neither of those actions were blocking out the creeping, nagging feeling that feeling that jumped ahead of others. That Elena Gilbert may be his star-crossed love; but there were things that were even more ancient than stars.

"I've got to make a phone call," to demonstrate this, Damon removed the iPhone 5 from his jacket pocket. "You stink brother. Take a shower. Change your clothes into something less drown rat infested. Do all of that with falling over, and I'll be in my room with the keys to Part Deux."

Damon left through the opened doorway without bothering to close it.

* * *

**xxxxXxxxx**

Matt had been in Damon and Stefan's garage a handful of times, and each time he was amazed by it. It had four sliding door entrance points and was like a showroom/professional garage combination. Flat concrete floors with several drains, a mechanical lift, shop bench with enough tools to outfit ten garages in town, and the most amazing cars.

Against the furthest red wall was Stefan's cherry red Porsche, next to that, Damon's powder blue 1969 Chevy Cheveille Convertible. Beside _that _stood a collection of Harley's from the 1950's in various colors.

A beautiful dark maroon 1939 Packard with white walled tires was next in line, and finally Damon's solid black Ford Ranger.

It was the SUV that Matt was standing by with the flat bed door opened. The limp head of a young buck sat half lolled out, antlers like fallen branches. It's throat was slit from ear to ear, and a large puddle off blood stained the floor's plastic shell.

A plastic milk jug sat beside on the ground, a funnel stuck in the bottle's neck. It was already half full of blood. Trickles pattered like lessening rain into the funnel from the flesh of the buck.

Liz Forbes had helped Matt load the buck into the Damon's car after he took it down. She had radioed her dispatch desk to the 'suspicious gunshots in the woods' but then radioed back a moment later, informing that it had been some out of town drunk teens popping off soda cans (She had brought pock marked soda cans, scattering them around the scene) and that one of them had missed and injured a deer, the animal had bounded off into the woods and the kids had scattered.

It was a very paper thin story but Liz had used all her influence to make it stick, Matt backing her up as being the one who had stumbled upon the 'kids' in the woods. They could only wait and see now.

"You're back," Caroline's heels echoed off the concrete floor. She stared at the head of the buck, eyes glazed over in death. "Ugh, that's so disgusting."

"You hunted these things with Stefan Care," Matt insisted. "Is it a little too late to go all Animal Activist?"

"I don't stare at them Matt and dry drain them over a plastic Velda Farms bottle," Caroline argued. It's just _cruel."_

A look and half a dry laugh was Matt's reply. The deer's blood was still draining, but he replaced the jug underneath with an empty one. He closed the cap and handed it to Caroline. "How's Stefan?"

Caroline took the jug from Matt. "Damon cloistered him off for some brother bonding yelling session, I don't know-" Elena and I haven't heard a peep from either of them in half an hour."

"And it's driving you crazy huh?" Matt hadn't dated Caroline in a long time, but he had grown up with her, he could still read her.

"Damn right it's driving me crazy!" Caroline retorted. "Stefan is my _friend_, and I'm just down stairs playing sentry duty."

"You gotta understand that he's the guys brother," Matt said of Damon leaving Caroline out of the loop. "Vicki used to get under my skin all the time. But she always came to me first with the deep stuff, even before all her crack head friends, before Jer," the longing in his sister's name or Jeremy's was not hidden. "That kind of thing tends to trump the other stuff; even you, and even Elena."

"Or they're both just being _dicks,"_ Caroline retorted and turned on her heel almost a kind of grace that wouldn't seem possible given that she was holding a jug of stolen deer blood, but yet she managed to pull it off.

Matt followed her back inside the boarding house.

Elena was sitting on the couch, but rose when she saw Matt and Caroline enter through the side door.

"Matt," Elena walked down the risen part of the floor where the couch was. "Are you okay? Did anyone see you?"

"Liz got everything buried Elena," Matt reassured. "It's fine."

He found himself in Elena's embrace. They had grown up as friends for so long. Through all the vampire insaneness, and the loss of their loved ones, they had gone from girlfriend/boyfriend, to ex's, back to the friends they always were.

A knock on the door brought Elena out of Matt's embrace. It turned all of their heads to the heavy wooden door. None of them were expecting anyone, and given what had just happened, a knock at ten minutes to midnight did not bode well.

Elena walked to the front door, Matt not far behind her.

"Who is it?" Elena called out.

"_It's Rick,"_ came the reply from the other side of the door.

Elena shared a total confusion look with the others. The Veil had gone up weeks ago. The voice was all wrong, and the inflection of the end of the word sounded like a 'k', not like the _Ric_ they were all thinking about.

Which buzzed warning signals at high alert, because it could easily be Silas.

Regardless, Elena opened the door. If there was a threat, she chose to see it, and if it was Silas, a door wasn't going to stop him from getting inside.

The door swung slowly open to reveal a guy, tanned, in his early teens or late 20's, buzzed head, angular face dressed in jeans and an olive shirt that looked like they had been hastily pulled on. "Are you Elena?"

"_Who are you?"_ Elena asked, keeping the doorway blocked, her head cocking just so to see Caroline moving closer.

"If you're Elena, I'm supposed to say: you have the worst kind of kinks for headboard smashing." 'Rick' spoke in almost a monotone kind of voice like he had been drug, or compelled.

"_Perfect delivery,"_

Elena whipped her head around to see Damon at the stairs with Stefan. "Damon, what the hell is going on?"

"Relax Elena, just a little security system for our pal Rick here," Damon and Stefan moved down the stairs almost at the same pace.

And when they got closer, Elena could see why. Damon had a grasp on the upper part of Stefan's arm like he was guiding his brother.

And Stefan didn't look completely happy about it, but it was like had resigned himself to just go along with it because he didn't want to deal with Damon's mouth.

"Set up over there Rick, that's a good boy." Damon said to the kid, gesturing to the living room with a jerk of his head.

Rick closed the door and came into the boarding house. He had a black carryon bag slung over his shoulder and he set it down on the coffee table, rattling the jug of blood that was already there.

"What _is_ all this?" Matt came over to the coffee table and watched Rick unzip the pack and pull out a black tattoo artist needle and several pots of dark henna ink.

"_This_ would be insurance Donovan," Damon picked up a sleeve of needle heads Rick had set on the table top. He opened it and examined the pointed needles inside and then grabbed Rick by the collar of his shirt. "These inks and heads are just _regular_ run of the mill henna and pointy metal-"

"Yes," Rick answered in the honest way people did when a Vampire compelled them. "No werewolf venom or vervain in anything like you asked."

"And Silas?"

Rick turned his eyes up to Damon. "I don't even know who that _is."_

Damon seemed somewhat satisfied at this. "And if anyone else comes in asking for the design you do tonight, even a twin of Wonder hair over there-"

"I deny it to them, do a similar one but with enough difference that you'll be able to tell_, _or I stab my jugular with this needle, whichever is best case scenario."

"_Damon!"_ Caroline shouted.

Damon seemed not to hear her. Instead he turned his gaze over to Stefan who was standing beside the coffee table. "Time to add another Tat to your collection brother."

Stefan had changed into a dark red and black plaid shirt and he rolled up the left sleeve of his shirt and sat down on the couch facing Rick.

Rick picked up Stefan's arm, holding a sharpie in his hand like he was a regular client in his shop, on any regular night. "You know what you want?"

"This is _insane!"_ Caroline yelled. "How is getting a _tattoo_ going to keep Silas from killing us all?"

"You misunderstood the question Blondie," Damon retorted. "This isn't about Silas not killing us. This is about dulling the edge on Stefan's doppelganger. If the real Stefan has something that the fake one _doesn't_ then we have the advantage."

"Even if you compel every tattoo artist in Mystic Falls not all Silas has to do is see it and get someone from another state, or even another _town_ to copy it." Elena's voice was raised. She didn't know what made her angrier, Damon compelling a kid to commit suicide for a tattoo, or Stefan's almost indifference to it.

"I wanted to get out of Mystic Falls Elena," Stefan spoke up, his eyes turned up to her. He watched the look shift there. He had been with her for so long he could read her thoughts, even if they were no longer together that didn't change it. "I was leaving to give you and Damon a fresh start-It's what Damon and I agreed to last year-"

"-Hey!" Damon cut in. "You can tell her something that was said in Brother Confidence, but I can't-"

Stefan cut Damon a look that would most likely murder anyone else. "Elena, I will stay in Mystic Falls. If you and my brother want me too-"

"Matt go find a stake and run me through with it," Damon said. "I don't want to listen to my little brother wax on anymore."

"But Damon's right," Stefan cut into Damon's sarcasm. "If I'm staying, I have to be smart about this."

"Dude," the voice came from Rick, who was still grasping Stefan's arm. He said it like was just an annoyed extended conversation about where they were all going to eat. Not how to protect one Vampire from the oldest Immortal of all time.

"I need to know what you want."

"A name," Damon answered Rick for Stefan "_Charlotte."_

"Is that another old girlfriend of Stefan's that you slept with?" Matt blurted out. It was angry and rushed and Damon almost killed him for less.

"It was our sister's name." Stefan's voice happened before Damon could instigate anything on Matt.

Elena's face betrayed complete confusion. So did Damon's.

"You never told me you had a sister-" Elena spoke out.

"She was a stillborn," Stefan told her. "She died a year before I was born. Back then it was taboo to speak the name of a dead child. But Damon told me about her one day after our father got drunk and left us to fend for ourselves with our maid."

"You were _two_," Damon argued, his eyebrows almost exploding from his hairline. "How did you even _remember_ what I said?"

"Father was drunk." Stefan raised his eyes to his brother. "He blamed me for mother dying when I was born. I ran to the boat house, you found me. It's harder to _not_ remember that Damon."

There was a look that hung in the air between both brothers, the things they never said to each other before Stefan stared talking again: "This will work because of the story behind it. Silas is my doppelganger, but even he didn't live my life with Damon before we turned." Stefan's gaze was back on Damon.

"The guy may be the highest evil up on the food chain; but apparently evil doesn't translate into good acting ability-" Damon said in agreement to what Stefan said. "He's the Devil who doesn't know his details."

"That's how you knew that it wasn't Stefan before," Elena's words were half a question and half a statement. Her head cocked to Damon in the way it did when she realized that she had underestimated him, _again._ "What did he say to you?"

Damon turned down to look at Rick who had drawn the word _Charlotte_ on Stefan's arm in a curling script. "You're not giving my brother a tramp stamp on his arm, lose a few of the flourishes. Oh and forget all parts of this conversation as well as coming here all together soon as you're done. Confidentiality Vampire clause and all."

"Anything else?" Rick's voice was still glazed over, like his thoughts were being controlled, but he was being a little petulant about it.

"Yeah, lose the attitude or I might just decide to pull your heart out through your mouth instead of letting you go back to your anime porn okay there Ricky?" Damon said like it was a simple, rational alternative.

A second later the needle whirred on and Rick began inking in the lines of the tattoo into Stefan's skin, no retort to Damon's suggestion to maim him crossing his lips.

"It wasn't a big confounding mystery Elena," Damon answered over the whirr of the needle. "Contrary to what you all believe I actually know my own brother." Damon watched the reactions of everyone in the room, finally ending on Stefan's. "Let's leave it at that shall we?"

Stefan watched Damon walk behind the couch to pour himself a glass of bourbon. The whirring of the tattoo needle the only thing that kept him from moving.

* * *

**xxxxXxxxx**

**End.**

This is not so much an end as a pause to where the season 5 opener would continue. I didn't want to make this a mini episode, I wanted to focus on what I wanted to see Damon do to save his brother.


End file.
